


300

by Ninyaaaaaaah



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Blood, Cheating, Depression, M/M, Mer!Verse, NSFW ish, Panic Attacks, Self Harm, Unhealthy Relationships, love/war, prompts, travel AU, unspecified modern verse, various verses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-01-17 20:49:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12373773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninyaaaaaaah/pseuds/Ninyaaaaaaah
Summary: a series of prompts, 300 words or less each





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> each individual prompt will be tagged with warnings!

**”shh, you’re safe now” + Mer!Verse**

It was bound to happen. 

John got too close to the wrong fishing boat when, bored, he’d tried to find the boat Laf was working on. 

Someone threw a net. Someone threw a spear. He was caught, momentarily, and the rough ropes tore his delicate fin when he wrenched free. 

He didn’t think, just swam, fast as he could. Nearly got speared at a second boat when, once again, it wasn’t Lafayette’s. 

Finally, spotted Lafayette on deck, and flung himself out of the water and into the air, shouts of alarm from the fishing crew, and Lafayette caught him out of instinct more than anything else, clasped him tight as John’s arms went around his neck and his tail around his waist, squeezing the life out of him. 

“Little one, what happened!” Lafayette’s warm body, his strong arms, his familiar scent comforted John, calmed his racing heart. 

“I went to the wrong boat! I got attacked! My tail!” John wailed, face buried in Lafayette’s neck.

“Shh, you’re safe now my love. You can stay here on the boat today, now let’s look at your tail.” Lafayette walked to a bench and sat down, and John stayed glued to him, face in his neck, eyes closed. 

He felt Lafayette take his tail with utmost care, spread the delicate fin out in his hands, and make a soft sound of sympathy. Cleaned it, and carefully pasted it back together with a small tube of something he called ‘miracle glue’. Wrapped John in a wet towel, and settled him on the bench to rest. Covered his face with kisses, and turned back to work. 

Calm now, John sat quietly out of the way, ignored the looks from some of the crew, and focussed instead on Laf’s blown kisses, and Matti’s shy smile. 

~*~*~

**”Please don’t do this” Love/War verse**   
_TW: alcohol abuse_

John thought he’d been so slick. 

He thought he was smooth, thought he was sneaky. Thought he’d managed to get away unseen. 

Sat at the bar with a drink in his hand, staring down at the amber liquid. Hated this, hated himself, hated that he couldn’t be strong enough not to end up here again and again and again, sitting in a different seat in a different bar with a different drink, nursing the same deep sorrow that came back, time and time again. 

“John,” Alex’s voice, as if out of a dream. 

John closed his eyes, tossed his drink back, felt it burn down his throat and turn into shame.

“John,” Alex’s hand on his arm. 

The bartender slid another drink across the bar. 

John picked it up, swirled the liquid in the glass. Didn’t look at Alex.

“John.” Alex’s hand closed over John’s wrist, stilled his gentle swirling. “Please don’t do this.”

Let him go again. Waited. Let him make the choice for himself.

John sighed, pushed the drink away. Pushed himself to his feet and walked out of the bar with Alex on his heels.

Out in the cool night air, in the open street, he turned and fell into Alex, wrapped shaky arms around him, tried to breathe deep around the empty, cold weight in his chest. 

Alex stood still, said nothing. Held John tight and wrapped him in warmth, and waited.

~*~*~

**”Wow, I guess you really are that ticklish” - Mer!Verse**

John wasn’t ticklish. 

So it fascinated him that he could run the tip of a finger down the back of Lafayette’s neck, barely touching him, and cause Lafayette to drop off the couch and onto the floor with a high pitched shriek. 

It fascinated him that he could let the end of his tail just brush Lafayette’s feet in the water, and make Lafayette scream and writhe and laugh. 

He couldn’t sneak up on Lafayette in the house, too bound to the tubs, too noisy when he did occasionally take it upon himself to crawl across the floor. 

But he could still catch Lafayette unaware from time to time. 

Lafayette was reading to him, curled up on the end of the couch closest to the tub, and John was half out of the tub, stretched across the arm of the couch, his tail in the water, his head on Lafayette’s shoulder. He lifted his hand, slowly, quietly, and brushed the back of Lafayette’s neck with his fingers. 

Lafayette flinched and squeaked, and John did it again, until Lafayette was laughing helplessly and rolling away, onto his back on the couch, and then John didn’t even have to touch him, just stretched his hands out and wriggled his fingers in Lafayette’s direction, and Lafayette was falling off the couch, squealing ‘no, no’, and laughing hysterically. 

John hauled himself up over the lip of the tub, landed on the ground beside Lafayette with a splat, then wriggled over and kissed him soundly.

“I guess you really are that ticklish, huh?” He teased, running teasing fingers up Lafayette’s side, making him jump and shriek again. 

“Brat,” Lafayette swatted John’s hand, caught his wrist and held the hand out of reach, and kissed John soundly. 

John melted into him, and forgot all about tickling. 

~*~*~

**”I can’t sleep without you here” - Travel AU**

John thought he could hold up okay. He thought he could handle it. He thought he could separate his heart and his body and enjoy what he was given until it ran out, and cope in all of the in betweens, each one more horrible than the last. 

He was getting whiplash, weeks in the sun and sand and Lafayette’s arms followed by weeks alone at home in the noise of the city, followed by more weeks in sun and sand and Lafayette’s arms. 

In the darkness of night, staring at a spinning ceiling with an empty wine bottle on the coffee table, John knew he couldn’t take it. Knew he’d been a fool to try. Still. 

He picked up his phone, thumbed in the passcode and let his thumb hover over Lafayette’s name. Where was he, tonight? Was he in Europe? France? Maybe Japan, or home in NYC with his real boyfriend, the one who got to live with him…

John tapped Lafayette’s name, the wine making him bold, making him needy. Held his phone to his ear and waited. 

“John?” Lafayette’s voice, sleepy sounding.

“Where are you?” John asked, whining, desperate, sad.

“New York. Are you alright?” 

John heard rustling sheets, and then the soft click of a door closing. 

“No. I can’t sleep without you here, I miss you,” John pouted. 

“Shh, it’s alright sweetheart. Here, put me on speaker, I will talk to you until you fall asleep, and it will be like I am right there,” Lafayette said, all warm, all reassuring, and John couldn’t help but let himself be soothed. 

Listened to Lafayette’s voice until he drifted to sleep, ignored the nagging in his heart that he couldn’t keep on like this.

~*~*~

**”I’m not okay” - Unspecified modern verse**   
_tw: blood, self harm_

“I’m not okay,” John says. What he means is, there’s blood running down his arms. What he means is, he’s shaking and he can’t stop. What he means is, the sweet sting of fresh wounds makes it easier to breathe.

“Let me in,” Alex says. What he means is, through the locked bathroom door. What he means is, through the walls John built in his heart. What he means is, he wants to stay, through all of it.

“I can’t remember the last time I was happy,” John says. What he means is, he can’t remember the last time he felt anything but numb. What he means is, crosshatching his arm is the only way he can feel anything, not just happy. What he means is, now is the only time tears ever come anymore, hot tracks down his freckled cheeks.

“John please,” Lafayette says. What he means is, let us help you. What he means is, we love you. What he means is, when you hurt yourself you hurt us. 

What he means is, please stop, please stop, please stop.

John reaches up and unlocks the door.

~*~*~

**”I wish I never met you,” Unspecified Modern Verse**   
_tw: cheating, tw: unhealthy relationship_

“I wish I never met you,” Alex is too honest. Alex can’t tell tears from water. Alex can’t hear himself think over the shower, over the taste of John’s freckled chest under his lips and tongue. 

“I’ll die without you, Alex,” John pants, too hot, too desperate, would climb inside Alex’s skin if he could, wear his love like a coat. John’s fingers scramble at Alex’s shoulders. John’s body will never forget Alex’s touch. 

“No, no,” Alex says. Alex, who can’t resist a hazel eyed freckled boy with sadness in the lines of his bones. Alex, who in three days time will wait at the altar for a raven haired girl who’s heart is the only place he’s ever felt safe. Alex, who wants and wants and wants and can’t let go. “No, no, you can’t say that.”

“Shut up, you know it’s true. I hate you for making me love you,” John wants to hold close what was never his to keep. Wants to wear Alex inside his skin if he can’t wear Alex’s skin like a coat. Wants to stay in this shower forever, until their fingers prune and the water goes cold. Wants to open his mouth and drown in the water, drown in the depth of his love for this selfish, sharp edged boy, drown in the sadness that only ever stops when Alexander holds him. 

~*~*~

**”Can you hear me?” - Unspecified modern verse**

Thunder erases Alex from his own bones. 

Thunder turns Alex into a racing heart, a dry tongue. Thunder turns Alex into breath that won’t come, fire in his lungs, tears on his cheeks. Fear that eviscerates him from the inside out, leaves him empty and shaking. 

Thunder steals Alex’s sight from his eyes. Thunder steels Alex’s breath from his lungs. Thunder steals Alex’s beat from his heart. 

So he sits on the couch in the dark and he shakes and he shakes and he shakes and there’s a keening sound in his ears and he doesn’t know what it’s coming from. 

Laf and John burst through the door, soaking wet, breathing hard. 

Startle a yelp from Alex.

“Alex! Alex can you hear me?” John falls to his knees in front of Alex on the couch, takes his cold hands, shakes him a little. 

Lafayette sits beside Alex on the couch, pulls him into his arms, rubs his wet hands up and down Alex’s arms. 

Alex shivers, leans into Lafayette, clings to John’s cold hands.

“Can you hear me?” John repeats. 

Alex nods because the thunder stole his voice, but he can hear John, and the keening noise has stopped, and he can’t do anything but shake and shake and shake in Lafayette’s arms. 

But he can hear John, and that’s something.

~*~*~

**”I never meant for it to go this far” Unspecified Modern Verse**

It starts with a brush of fingertips over a desk at work. 

It starts with the way their eyes meet and click and hold and heat blooms in John’s gut. 

It starts with a brush of hip on hip in the elevator. 

It becomes a kiss stolen in an alley at night.

It becomes hands over clothes, touching desperately, heavy breath, panting breath. 

It becomes phone calls in the dark dead of night.

It becomes hip bones bruised against desks. 

It turns into Alex and John in a hotel room, undressed and burning up with need. It turns into Alex and John kissing each other like they’ll die if they stop, hands all over each other, taking and needing and taking. 

“I never meant for it to go this far,” whispers John into the dark. Grabs Alex by the hips and pulls him closer anyways, slow grind of body on body. 

“I’m addicted to you,” Alex says, and he seals it with a kiss, and John never meant for any of this to happen, but that doesn’t mean he can say now when Alex rolls his hips and John’s mouth unseals from his to confess his weakness to the cool night air with a moan.


	2. Chapter 2

_& I promised I’d be there but you don’t make it easy  
Darling please believe me  
“Drive”, Oh Wonder_  
-  
Alex tries to leave a thousand times.

He makes it to the state line once, feels elated for a split second as he crosses into Pennsylvania before the reality of what he’s doing hits him like a ton of bricks and he has to pull over because he can’t breathe.

He never makes it that far again.

He always turns back to John.

John, who is all fire, all bruise. All heat and lightning and raw. John, whose touch sears something that lives deep under Alex’s bones, whose kiss tears his heart out his throat, whose freckled skin maps the backs of Alex’s eyelids like his own private starry sky.

Alex can’t breathe with his heart in those shaky, scrape knuckled hands.

Alex shivers in the cold without the fire in those hazel eyes lighting his life aflame.

So Alex pulls over just past the city limits and slams the car into park. He lets out a howl of frustration and slams his fists into the steering wheel.

Punches the hazard lights on because what is this if not one giant hazard, flashing lights, look away, avoid at all costs, but Alex can’t.

He drops his forehead to the steering wheel and he shakes and everything feels cold and he’s tried to run away a thousand times now but he can’t get his heart out of John’s teeth and how can he live if he’s left his heart behind in a wild fire?

So he scrubs the back of his hand across his cheeks and he shakes in the cold and the wet salt of his tears and he turns the car back around and phones John as he drives into a blinding sunset.

“I can’t do this anymore, I’m coming home,” he sobs, over and over.

Words: 297

 

~*~

 

_I woke up in my shoes again but somewhere you exist, singing  
“Young and Menace”, Fallout Boy_

James is sick again. James is sick again and Thomas can’t breathe. Thomas can’t breathe because he can’t fix it and the smell of hospitals makes him feel sick and he hates the colour white. 

Thomas sits with his back against a brick wall and his head beneath his knees and he tries to breathe. He tries to breathe and his hands shake and he hates his shaking hands that can’t do anything in the face of all this illness. 

James is sick again and Thomas is all fear, all tension. Thomas has to step outside because he can’t take another moment without a blue sky above him and grass beneath his feet and he hates himself for it. Hates that he has to take these moments when James can’t do anything but lie in a hospital bed and try not to die on him again. 

James is sick again and Thomas wants to run away. Thomas wants to run away and he hates himself for that too. 

James is sick again but Thomas can’t imagine life without him, so Thomas stands up and goes back inside. He swallows his fear as he walks down the hall and he shakes inside and his fingers tremble and he hates that he can’t stop them. Hates that James has to see it. 

James is sick again and Thomas sits next to his hospital bed and bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds. James is sick again, and Thomas sits next to his hospital bed and holds his hand with fingers that shake. James is sick again, and Thomas never knew it would hurt so much to love someone so much. 

Words: 280

 

~*~

 

 _We're looking up at the same night sky  
We keep pretending the sun will not rise  
“Ocean Avenue,” Yellowcard_  
-  
James watched Thomas slip away slowly, like a dream, like a receding tide. 

He remembers being young, when it wasn’t so hard to keep up, when Thomas held his hand in the playground or sat with him on the beach. He remembers being teenagers and watching Thomas blossom into something akin to the sun, while James stayed small and soft and quiet, a moon in his orbit. 

Thomas always had space for James, though. 

Always, until he didn’t.

Until he pulled farther and farther ahead just by virtue of being the force of nature he was. 

Until he left, and James followed until James got to sick to follow and now James is home and Thomas is… 

Not.

It’s been months since he’s heard from Thomas, but still it feels like the sun is gone from his sky. 

James lies on his back and stares at the stars out the window. He thinks of all the times he snuck onto Thomas’ rooftop, and they lay on their backs and watched the night go by. The way the world seemed to pause for them, a heavy peace settling over them that James had only ever found lying side by side with Thomas. He remembers how their fingers used to curl and almost touch, how the first brush of warm skin on skin felt like electricity. How the first time Thomas kissed him, it didn’t stir anything in his body except a deep feeling of _home_.

He reaches for his phone, taps at the black screen idly. Thinks he should text Thomas. Thinks he shouldn’t. Does this every day, and never ends up sending anything, got tired of holding Thomas back. 

_I miss you_

James stares at the text that comes in under his hovering thumb. Smiles. 

Words: 299

 

~*~

 

 _We dance on the edge of destruction  
“Perfect For You,” Next To Normal_  
-  
Alexander is all teeth and Thomas is all sharp edges and when they crash together it’s all bone and the sound of shattering glass.

But oh, it hurts so good.

It hurts so good when Thomas’ sharp edges tear his skin to ribbons, when his teeth rip into Thomas’ jugular and he tastes iron and passion on his tongue. 

It hurts so good when Thomas licks into his mouth and pins him down and rakes his teeth over Alexander’s skin until it turns purple and calls it love. 

It hurts so good when Alexander begs for it, when his voice is cracked and broken and his skin trembles with want of being taken apart. 

It hurts and it hurts and it hurts until they tear each other open enough to find a soft place inside. Until their fingers fit together and they lie on sweaty sheets and the sound of Thomas breathing is the most honest thing Alexander has ever heard in his entire life. Until Thomas presses his lips to the back of Alexander’s neck and raises goosebumps on his skin and whispers that he loves him right into all the downy hairs. 

Alexander is all teeth and Thomas is all sharp edges but they fit together like pieces of a puzzle, sharp edge to sharp edge, and it’s enough. 

Words: 221

 

~*~

 

 _I remember we were so sure, so innocent  
Oh, but that was then  
“Speaking A Dead Language,” Joy Williams_  
-  
Beginnings taste sweet and endings taste bitter. This, John knows too well. 

He fell into Lafayette as easy as breathing, wasn’t swept off his feet so much as threw himself off them into Lafayette’s willing arms. 

John doesn’t know how they got here, with John sitting at a blank easel by the window, gray winter light filtering in. His impotent hands shake in his lap and his knuckles look like a sunset and he knows his face does too. He doesn’t know when Lafayette started smoking. When Lafayette started looking the other way when John dragged his body through the door with the dawn, reeking of liquor and bruise. 

John doesn’t know when everything started to feel too small again, doesn’t know why he shakes with the need to wear his hurts on the outside like that gives him some sense of control over them. 

John doesn’t know when Lafayette stopped trying to reach him, fingers stretched out in the dark, a wet mouth on a hip bone, the taste of John’s blood in their kiss. 

John doesn’t know when he stopped looking for safety in Lafayette, when Lafayette’s skin started to taste bittersweet on his tongue. 

John looks at his blank canvas and he knows that this is what an ending looks like. 

He sets his paintbrush down and stands up, and he wonders what it would feel like to reclaim something that should be his. He stretches, rolls his neck on his shoulders, doesn’t know when this space began to feel so strange around him. 

He walks out into the living room and he stretches himself out over Lafayette’s long body on the couch.

“I want to come home,” he whispers.

“Finally,” Lafayette whispers back, and it sounds like relief. 

John kisses him, and Lafayette’s mouth tastes sweet. 

Words: 300

 

~*~

 

 _I wish I was a tune you sang in your kitchen  
Putting your groceries away and washing your dishes  
I could float around your tongue and ease the tension  
And then when you were done you'd just quiet down  
“I Wish I Was,” The Avett Brothers_  
-  
Lafayette longs for sunlight and softness. He longs for smooth edges and stability and he longs for comfort. 

Lafayette wants to coax Alexander into a sunbeam and watch him stretch and discover what it feels like to enjoy the sensation of sunlight on skin. He wants Alexander at his kitchen table on a late Sunday morning drinking coffee and eating french toast. He wants Alexander in his bed with his soft skin against the silk sheets and candles on the nightstand. He wants Alexander’s head on his chest in the morning, bed headed and sleepy eyed. 

So he draws him in carefully. Smooths his sharp edges until they begin to soften, until he can rub his face into Alexander’s stomach and stretch out against his softness. He fills Alexander up with love and French cooking, watches the hollows of his hips and ribs fill in. 

But Alexander is a wild thing, and if Lafayette moves too quick he bolts back with snapping teeth. Lafayette realizes that Alexander will always have sharp edges, that he will always be coaxing him back, coaxing him back, coaxing him back. 

It’s worth it for the moments like this one, when Alexander slinks through the door all rumpled, all wild eyed, all ink stained. When he looks at Lafayette all hollow and sharp and instead of retreating, he drops his sharp edges at the door and he pads on quiet feet over to the couch. When he stretches himself down onto it and lets his head drop into Lafayette’s lap. When he lets Lafayette run his fingers through his hair over and over again until he’s soothed the feral sharpness right out of Alexander’s skin and back down into his bones. 

Words: 255

 

~*~

 

 _I could never find the right way to tell you  
Have you noticed I've been gone?  
'cause I left behind the home that you made me  
But I will carry it along  
“Shelter,” Porter Robinson_  
-  
John shuts off his phone.

He falls face down on the shabby motel bed and lets it fall from his hand. Hears it drop on the worn carpet and leaves it where it falls. 

He feels clear headed, like this is a thing that he meant to do, like he’s here because he wants to be. Like he didn’t drive for three days straight just to check into a hotel in a nameless town. Like he doesn’t have countless ignored calls and texts on his phone. 

Like he knows what he’s running away from. 

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes to the sound of a fist pounding on the door. 

He jumps up and yanks the door open, and stares uncomprehendingly at Hercules, standing in the rain outside his motel window. 

“How…” 

“You didn’t make it hard, John,” Hercules says, and his voice sounds like home and John quivers at the sound of it. 

“Let me in?” Hercules asks, and something inside John breaks because he knows Hercules doesn’t mean into the room. 

Instead, he steps out into the rain and he folds himself into Hercules’ open arms. Hercules wraps his arms around John and holds him like he never wants to let him go, 

“I love you,” he whispers against John’s ear.

John shakes his head and inhales the smell of rain and Hercules, and he chokes on tears he won’t shed. 

“You’re gonna stop though. Everyone does,” he says. 

“Not if you give me the chance to keep going,” Hercules murmurs.

“I’m safe here?” John asks, small and desperately needy.

“You’re safe here,” Hercules confirms.

Maybe, just maybe, if they say it enough, John will learn to believe it.

Words: 283


End file.
